Officials upset with move to close CL&P office

Wes Duplantier

Updated 11:47 pm, Friday, January 31, 2014

Dave Stockmal talks about the repercussions of closing the Yankee Gas facility in Ansonia, Conn. Thursday, Jan. 30, 2014. Stockmal has chosen to retire after 43 years rather than change offices. The closure of these offices is part of a larger move by the parent company, Northeast Utilities, to close and consolidate offices across Connecticut, as a cost-saving measure.
Photo: Autumn Driscoll

Dave Stockmal talks about the repercussions of closing the Yankee Gas facility in Ansonia, Conn. Thursday, Jan. 30, 2014. Stockmal has chosen to retire after 43 years rather than change offices. The closure of these offices is part of a larger move by the parent company, Northeast Utilities, to close and consolidate offices across Connecticut, as a cost-saving measure.
Photo: Autumn Driscoll

Dave Stockmal talks about the repercussions of closing the Yankee Gas facility in Ansonia, Conn. Thursday, Jan. 30, 2014. Stockmal has chosen to retire after 43 years rather than change offices. The closure of these offices is part of a larger move by the parent company, Northeast Utilities, to close and consolidate offices across Connecticut, as a cost-saving measure.
Photo: Autumn Driscoll

NEW MILFORD -- Northeast Utilities, the parent company of Connecticut Light & Power and Yankee Gas, plans to close and consolidate several area offices this year, including its CL&P office on Route 202, a move that has town officials worried that residents may be placed in danger with increased response times.

NU confirmed this week that it will close additional offices in Wilton, Oxford, Greenwich and other towns across Connecticut. But workers in those offices will not automatically lose their jobs.

Instead, they will be transferred to nearby offices, including the Newtown CL&P office, where the work force is projected to increase from 89 to 113 employees.

Spokesman Mitch Gross said the office changes are intended to increase efficiency and reduce costs. He also said NU is focused on responding to calls as quickly and safely as possible.

"This was a tough decision to make," he said. "It was a decision that was made not only here in Connecticut, but across all the Northeast (Utilities)-owned companies."

NU officials said its internal studies have shown that response times will only increase by a few minutes after the closures.

But in interviews this week -- and in letters to state regulators -- New Milford officials expressed concern with the local office's closure and whether it would endanger residents.

Mayor Pat Murphy said the company told her it had made improvements to be more efficient. But Murphy said she wanted to see evidence of CL&P's improved response to a disaster before moving the office to another town.

"My suggestion was to see how their internal improvements have progressed after there's a public emergency, and then consider closing service facilities," she said. "While they may be reviewing models, we are out here on the ground with the public."

Murphy said the utility's response during an outage is especially critical in the outlying areas of town because a loss of power means a loss of water for people who rely on wells.

And in a letter to state regulators on Dec. 16, Police Chief Shawn Boyne said the closure plan did not appear to take into account that the town's three main east-west roads are prone to flooding during severe weather, making it difficult to access the town from the outside.

"Having a regional response from Newtown is all well and good, but I am at a loss to see the benefit if the services cannot even get into the town via the anticipated response routes," he wrote.

Northeast Utilities said advancements such as GPS units will allow dispatchers to monitor the trucks and help workers reach local addresses in a timely manner.

The office closings have come under scrutiny from state regulators and officials across the region.

The inquiry focused on whether public safety would be affected by the outsourcing or the closings.

In filings with PURA, Northeast Utilities said that response times would be impacted by the office closures, but not as severely as some believe.

The company said it had done a study showing that 97 percent of CL&P's customers can be reached by a service truck in 45 minutes and the company said that figure will go to 90 percent after the office closures.

The company said the closures would add a maximum of five minutes to its overall drive time during morning rush hour, when CL&P sends its trucks into the field for a day's work.

Several officials from other towns across the state sent letters to PURA in opposition to the office closings.

Mayors, state legislators and emergency responders said they didn't want to lose their local contact with the utility company. They also worried about the extra travel time the moves could add, especially in the event of traffic or severe weather.

Others were concerned that service workers at the new consolidated offices might not be familiar with their local roads and buildings. They also lamented the loss of employees who had worked in their respective towns for many years.

Northeast Utilities said advancements such as GPS devices will allow dispatchers to monitor the trucks and help workers reach a customer's addresses in a timely manner.

A final decision in the PURA case is expected to be made in mid-March, officials said. But the office closures and moves have already begun, starting with Ansonia earlier this week.

In its own filings, the state attorney general's office said PURA should monitor the quality of the utility company's service and require NU to submit data on dispatch times to find out whether the company's timeliness claims are accurate.

"PURA must hold NU to its clear commitment that the proposed facilities closings will not harm service quality or reliability," the attorney general's office wrote in a brief submitted Jan. 24.

The attorney general's office likely cannot stop the closings. In an interview this week, Deputy Attorney General Perry Zinn Rowthorn said his office doesn't want to force the company to avoid being more efficient.

"What we don't want to do prematurely is take the position that the company should continue to incur costs that may be ultimately costly to the ratepayer," he said.

But if PURA directs the company to submit information about response times, that data can be used in future ratemaking cases that Northeast Utilities has with the state.

If response times rise dramatically, the attorney general's office could ask PURA to assess a penalty on the company.

Such costs can't be passed along to customers and must be absorbed by shareholders.

The attorney general's office said penalties are meant to be an incentive for the company to do a good job.

Even after the PURA case finishes, Zinn Rowthorn said, the office is going to carefully monitor the utility's response.

"We're asking for vigilance and we're going continue to be vigilant," he said.